December 6, 2023

The Global Tipping Points Report 2023

The Global Tipping Points Report is a peer-reviewed assessment of the threats and opportunities of negative and positive tipping points in the Earth System and in society.

Tipping points are points beyond which changes can be locked in (for example, the irreversible collapse of an ice sheet or the rapid transition to electric vehicles). They occur when change in a system becomes self-sustaining once pushed beyond a threshold, leading to a substantial and often irreversible shift in the system’s state, even if the initial driver is removed.

The report is in four sections: Earth system tipping points, Impacts, Governance, and Positive tipping points in technology / economy / society.

Journalists attended this online briefing to hear from four of the authors.

Speakers included: 

Prof Tim Lenton, Lead Author and Chair in Climate Change and Earth System Science in the Global Systems Institute, University of Exeter

Dr David Armstrong McKay, Earth System Tipping Points Lead and Research Impact Fellow at the Global Systems Institute, University of Exeter & Associated Researcher at Stockholm Resilience Centre

Dr Manjana Milkoreit, Governance Lead and Research Fellow at the University of Oslo, Norway and Norwegian Institute for Foreign Affairs

Dr Tom Powell, Positive Tipping Points Lead and Research Impact Fellow, Global Systems Institute, University of Exeter

This briefing was accompanied by an SMC Roundup of Comments.